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Analyzing monthly environmental data from the North Atlantic Ocean will help you to learn more about how the water cycle affects sea surface salinity. Your challenge is to find the data set that most closely corresponds to sea surface salinity patterns.

Salinity is key to studying the water cycle and ocean circulation, both of which are related to climate. Over decades, the amount of salt in ocean basins has been fairly stable. The water cycle operates on much faster time scales, however, causing changes in salinity patterns.

The world's ocean is heated at the surface by the sun, and this heating is uneven for many reasons. Earth's rotation, revolution around the sun, and tilt all play a role, as do the wind-driven ocean surface currents.

An important scientific practice is the asking and refining of questions that lead to rich descriptions, explanations, and reasoning of how the natural and designed world works, as well as those investigations of variables that can be empirically tested.

This investigation is part of the NASA: Mission Geography Module "What are the causes and consequences of climate change?" that guides students through explorations in climatic variability and evidence for global climate change.

The Cryosphere refers to any place on Earth where water is in its solid form, where low temperatures freeze water and turn it into ice. The frozen water can be in the form of solid ice or snow and occurs in many places around the Earth.